Laborers Rejoin the AFL-CIO Building & Construction Trades Department

March 13 2008

Washington, DC – The Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) announced today that they have rejoined the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, effective immediately. 

The BCTD Governing Board of Presidents approved the re-affiliation of LIUNA by a unanimous vote.

The Laborers, together with three other building trades unions (the Carpenters, Operating Engineers and Teamsters), broke away two years ago to form a new construction workers organization called the National Construction Alliance (NCA). The Teamsters later re-affiliated with the Building Trades.

“We are extremely pleased to have the Laborers back once again as an important part of the Building Trades family,” said BCTD President Mark H. Ayers.

A spokesman for LIUNA said today that they are looking forward to working closely with the other building trades unions to continue winning back market share and providing family-supporting pay, fair benefits and job security to the working men and women of North America.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), construction unions increased their membership last year faster than the rate of job growth in that industry. Membership jumped from 13.0 percent in 2006 to 13.9 percent in 2007, reversing the trend towards decline for the first time since 1983.

Robert Hoover, President of The Association of Union Constructors (TAUC), expressed his support of the Laborers’ decision. “I applaud Presidents O’Sullivan and Ayers for coming together to add a needed layer of strength to the BCTD. With the Laborers help, the building trades becomes a more effective organization at bringing prevailing wages, good benefits and a measure of job security to the hard-working men and women in the construction and industrial maintenance fields.”

The Laborers International union is among the largest in North America, representing more than 800,000 workers in 650 locals in 50 different industries in the US and Canada. 

Stephen R. Lindauer, CEO of TAUC, agrees that this is good news for organized labor and our signatory contractors. “It is great to see the house of labor welcoming home one of its brothers. We work in a fiercely competitive industry and the more unified labor becomes the larger the future dividends.” 

“The revolutionary war sentiment that ‘if we don’t all hang together, we shall all hang separately’ is a notion that organized labor needs to take to heart,” added Lindauer.

About The Association of Union Constructor (TAUC):
TAUC is an association of concerned union contractors, primarily engaged in steel erection, industrial maintenance and construction. The mission of TAUC is to act as an advocate in advancing and enhancing the value of the union construction industry through an educated and action driven membership by fostering the promotion of labor-management cooperation, workplace safety and health, and collaboration with construction users in order to help union contractors compete more effectively in the marketplace.

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